Script Review: HAVOC

by Darwin Mayflower

WARNING: SPOILERS!

(10/22/00)

NOTE: The screenplays we review are often in development and may experience many rewrites, some could end up being completely different than what is reviewed here. It is our hope that our reviews generate more interest in the film. Thank you.

Stephen Gaghan is the screenwriter of choice right now. And hes been a busy boy over the last few years.

For one season he was the executive story editor on THE PRACTICE and he also co-wrote (with his writing partner Michael R. Perry) two episodes. He won an Emmy for his NYPD BLUE episode (co-written by Perry and David Milch) WHERES SWALDO. He co-produced and wrote for the show SLEEPWALKERS. And wrote (with Perry again) for the TV show AMERICAN GOTHIC.

He recently penned the script for the Sam Jackson-Tommy Lee Jones film RULES OF ENGAGEMENT. Wrote (with his partner Perry) the script TWENTY BILLION (which was rewritten and will be directed by Michael Tolkin). Did an uncredited overhaul of I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER. Has been the only writer on the star-studded, Steven Soderbergh-directed TRAFFIC. And now we have HAVOC. A script written sometime in the whirlwind of the above titles and was to go into production for New Line Cinema, under the direction of Peter Horton. To date, that has not happened. As for where it is in its development -- your guess is as good as mine. But with Gaghans rising fame the film, if hes committed to it, shouldnt be too far behind.

HAVOC, despite what I just said, has actually been canceled out, so to speak, by another film which works under a similar idea. That film was James Tobacks BLACK AND WHITE. The semi-improvised jaunt about whites obsessed with black culture.

HAVOC is the same story, with young kids, who happen to be rich and despise their own race. They adopt the stylings of hip-hoppers, wearing baggy clothes and talking the lingo. Trying to be down and keep it real when they have no idea what exists outside their fortified, sanitized surroundings.

Gaghan knows the people in his script. He probably lives next door to them. And on the surface -- and the surface only -- they are realistic portraits of confused teens living in L.A.s affluent suburbs.

The problem with the script is that its all idea and no story. Much the same way Tobacks movie was.

And theres really nothing more deadly to a script than when a writer has all idea and no story. The piece bogs down in redundancy and the author is forced to make, and remake, his point in different ways -- all looking the same and coming to the same conclusion.

In this case the conclusion is that these teens are working under the power of other problems, dont know it and dont care to know it, and embrace this other "personality" to escape the real them. In the scripts best piece of dialogue, a young Latino man says to the homegirled-up rich white kid, "Im tryin to look like I got the money and you wanna look like me."

There it is. So now you dont have to sit through the script which makes that point about fifteen hundred times.

HAVOC is a bit like Arakis NOWHERE without the lunacy and fun. These kids are boring and dull and have to take on foreign ways and stylings (which make them look like buffoons) because they have absolutely no individuality.

And, as a writer, if you dont do anything with these kids besides sit them down and let us stare at them like the freaks they are -- like looking in at a two-headed chicken in a freak show -- the material is going to become as dull as they are.

Gaghan has the right idea when he lets his suburban bad-asses go to the inner city and confront the real version of what they imitate. But its more or less wasted because for the first time in the script Gaghan goes the phony route and sticks in a scene that reads like a cheat.

The leader of the suburban crew gets beat on a drug deal. He struts out of his car and accosts the dealer. The dealer pulls a gun and in true movie fashion the kid urinates in his pants.

This entire scene, which should have meant something, is almost entirely muted for the rest of the script. Youd think the leader (Toby/Havoc), having faced the stark reality of his obsession, the pain of humiliation, and realization of how good his life really is, would be affected in some way -- positive or negative -- by the events. But instead Gaghan focuses on Tobys girlfriend, Emily, a smart-but-hiding-it white homegirl who goes back to the hood and hooks up with some Latino drug dealers.

Which leads to an obvious and anticlimactic finale. With Emilys friend Allison trying to get in the mens crew and agreeing to their vile initiation (roll a die and whatever number comes up determines how many men you sleep with) and later claims rape.

Will Emily stay silent with the truth? Will she let the men take the rap? They are not nice guys and intended to use Allison -- but they did not rape her.

Gaghan doesnt play up Emilys "moral dilemma" (thankfully) and the "rape" actually becomes secondary to another rushing-toward-an-anticlimax that could have lead to something spectacular.

The suburban kids take up arms and ride to the hood to honor the girl they think was violated.

The Latino guys take up arms and ride to the suburbs to do away with the "two lying bitches."

But instead of some kind of event taking place -- literally exploding -- where both sides learn something about themselves and their perceptions and their lives...they both get turned away -- nothing happens -- Emily does the right thing -- and we have our end.

HAVOC is a classic case of someone who has something to say -- something valid to say -- but once he has it said doesnt know what in the hell to do next. Spike Lees BAMBOOZLED is a good example.

HAVOC is all setup and no payoff.

Why do these intelligent, rich, attractive teens act like people who have to sell drugs to stay alive? Why do they romanticize ghettos as "real living" and dodging bullets as "keeping it real"? Well...whatever the reason is -- youre not going to find it here.

A few glimpses of banal-in-their-ubiquity indifferent parents cant explain away a whole way of life.

As a writer friend used to say time and time again: Smart, but lacks execution.

-- Darwin Mayflower.